Poetry: #62 The Feed (The Search For 10)
Social Media and Entertainment Distract Us!
The Feed
Have no wonder and it will shine, the leaking darkness inside Gripped with vitriol and tamed, the anxiety reaches all the mind Holding onto some hope or dream, desperate to achieve before “the” time Dopamine kicks and all the memes, leaving nothing left for patience “Is it all as it seems? Or am I left with the devices to resume my frustration?” The racing of the mind and the spacious emptiness creates anxiety that cannot leave anyone at all. Anyone so consumed with news, and words, and memes, and conspiracies. The compulsive stations of the brain running nonstop until the contagious situation frees itself into yet another wave of temptation and the subsequent sensation… The inspiration and motivation of the writer falters not because of will or want or aptitude, It fails in the eyes of the ever-present Feed. Always drifting in and out of those who see it without realizing how drugged they become until it is all but too easy to delude. Dancing on the graves of the fathers, and the islands of the ancestors… Living between time on every preplanned line…
What are your thoughts on this poem?
My Thoughts & Takeaway
Yes, this was Poem Drop #4 last year and it has a much more personal meaning in context with the rest of The Search For collection.
This is where I made the connection between my time and where it was being spent. The scrolling of social media that eventually led to me limiting and deleting various accounts until I had the time back for writing. Instead of writing and gaming and working, I was gaming and social media scrolling and working and gaming and social media scrolling. I had to pull back on something and social media was the least meaningful of all of these. Gaming at least served a purpose of stress relief and entertainment with friends.
This is a poem that describes being torn by social media, by society and what others want and expect, and what the dreams and ambitions of the self are. Without time to think, the endless doom scroll that gives the addict what they need without much thought, it is hard to form coherent sentences past quick conversations. It becomes difficult to hold the entire idea of a manuscript and implement it either in an outline or the full draft form. World building and ideas come from thinking; they come from fleeting thoughts that can only be found with spontaneity and serendipity. Creativity comes from thought, some are more apt to thinking in the ways required than others, but we all possess it. The way we apply creativity is where most differ.
With the recognition and removal of social media as a central driving force in my life outside work, I was able to put my mind to work. I was able to learn while gaming as I binge podcasts when playing low effort games with friends or by myself. For me it is Civilization V and Age of Empires 2 that give me this opportunity, sometimes Fallout and Pokémon games. I was able to apply lessons to practical uses, everything I could gain from what I was reading or hearing or using in the games. I spent extra time reading and pondering, thinking, world building. I deepened my thoughts, and the ideas came back to me.
When we refocus our lives, we find things we thought were lost to us. Sometimes it is hard or impossible to refocus as we once did, but when we do, we tap into what our true self is saying, what it wants for us, and what we do. Between God and the true self, there is no other I take on faith alone. When I listen to my thoughts and they give me ideas, I write them down, more so than ever before. If I don’t, they are lost. I cannot wait until after the shower or brushing my teeth, that is too long and the inspiration is gone, the idea is lost to the ether.
The social media feed is full of ideas, thoughts, and inspiration. However, the majority of feeds are cluttered with meaningless quips, pics, memes, and all the rest. Anything good is lost to the feed, to the ether that is the internet. The spark of inspiration must become a post online and nothing more, the post is a way to record the idea until you have the ability to go back and record it more appropriately, to expand and grow the idea.
Question Section
This is the meaning of the entire collection: Search for the wellspring within that you have hidden deep down, tap into it, refocus yourself in what it calls you to do, and execute consciously and in your everyday life so that you achieve what it has in store for you. You will find that your actions sing much more often with what you want out of life. What are you waiting for?
I hear another poem is coming every Saturday!